Pastor Curt Demars-Johnson
Pastor Curt DeMars-Johnson has been serving our church since April of 2008.
Curt was ordained in 1980 in Duluth, MN while serving his first U.C.C. congregation. He has served three United Church of Christ parishes in Colorado, Minnesota, and Michigan.
He is a professionally trained intentional interim minister, and has guided five U.C.C churches in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan through periods of transition.
His core interests – in addition to worship leadership and teaching – are church revitalization and spiritual transformation coupled with engaging the great issues of our times in a reflective and encouraging way.
Curt is a writer. His first book, Igniting Your Genius, is a text designed to inspire life-long learning by asking original, startling, and expansive questions based on everyday observations. He and his wife have a grown son and live in Okemos, MI.
Music director Dr. Ilya Blinov
lya Blinov, from Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky), brings a passion for music of all kinds to his work at St. Paul.
Ilya began his musical studies at the age of six. A graduate of the Music College of Nizhny Novgorod and the Nizhny Novgorod State Conservatoire, he has presented recitals in Russia in Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Penza, Kostroma, and St. Petersburg, and in Paris at the Yamaha Center.
As a winner of the 39th Annual Competition in Music Performance (Bowling Green, OH), he performed Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the Bowling Green Philharmonia. Other notable performances include a recital on Live From FM 91 (WGTE Public Radio) and an all- Shostakovich recital in September 2006 dedicated to the composer’s centenary. Two months later, he appeared at the Shostakovich Festival in Rome and Venice, Italy.
Ilya has a doctorate in piano performance from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree from Bowling Green State University.
Meena Bhattacharya, office manager
Meena Bhattacharya has been the friendly voice on the other end of the line at St. Paul since 1993. She manages the day-to-day business of the church – everything from accounting and scheduling to preparing bulletins and circulating news to the congregation. Meena, a native of New Delhi, India, has lived in Michigan since 1983, when she and her husband moved to Ann Arbor from Corvallis, Oregon. Some of her friends, she says, still don’t understand why she’s willing to drive 22 miles each way from Ann Arbor – year-round and in all kinds of weather – to work at St. Paul.
Meena just smiles and says, “I love working here. The people are very, very nice, and very helpful. I think it’s the people that bring me here every day.”